Thursday, August 11, 2011

So, being both 1) a good liberal NPR-listener, and 2) a nerdy science-fiction/fantasy/horror fan (though not nearly as much as I was back in my high school and college years), I, of course, voted in NPR's survey to pick the Top 100 Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books. You can look over the list there; here, I'm going to do what you're supposed to do with these lists: go through the whole thing, and mark the ones I've read. Everyone can play along! But let's make this interesting: give yourself one point for each one you're read, and let's compare scores. And so...

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert--part credit, here: I read (and loved) the original Dune, read (and grew increasingly disappointed in) Dune Messiah, attempted to read (but abandoned) Children of Dune, never even tried to read the fourth "official" book in the series, God Emperor of Dune. So, give me about one-third point for this one.
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson--I think I should double-credit here, since I read not only this first trilogy, but the second one as well. I haven't read any of the books from the final, recent trilogy, though a couple of friends of mine insist they're worth their weight in gold.
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart--excuse me, but this is absolute nonsense: you're only going to rank a single volume of Mary Stewart's masterful Merlin series? You're not going to give any credit for The Hollow Hills or The Last Enchantment (or, for that matter, the later, "addendum" to the series, The Wicked Day)? Sorry, but I'm calling bullshit on this. I insist that those who haven't read the whole series decline to give themselves a point for this one book.
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

So, I end up (counting my protests about Dune and Thomas Covenant) with 32.3 points. How about you?

Non-alignments: 9: Brave New World11: The Princess Bride20: Frankenstein37: 20k Leagues Under the Sea39: War of the Worlds43: Mistborn45: Left Hand of Darkness72: Journey to the Center of the Earth80: Wicked88: Thrawn Trilogy (Star Wars)91: Illustrated Man

I recommend Mistborn. Brave New World was important to me when I read it in high school and I think is worth reading as counterpoint to 1984. I recall Princess Bride being fun, much like the movie, but in different ways also. I threw my copy of Wicked in a trash can upon completion.

From your list, the ones on my radar are: 8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov 33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey 35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller 42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman 52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman 58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson

How much Conan and Covenant have you read, Aeon? As I mentioned, I read the first and second Covenant trilogies way back in the 1980s; I wasn't even aware that Donaldson had returned to the character until this year, and I don't know if I'll ever get around to reading the final trilogy (especially since I've been told that I need to re-read the first six books to understand what's happening!). As for Conan, I believe I had about seven paperback collections of Conan stories, and I thought I was a completist there. Exactly how many Conan stories did Robert E. Howard write, anyway?

How so, Abbot? I only insisted on a series being counted in one case (the Mary Stewart Merlin trilogy), I think. I gave myself a point for reading the second Thomas Covenant series, but that's it. I didn't even give myself full points for Dune, as I hadn't finished it. Is that what you're talking about? My wife gave herself points for Xanth and bunch of others (including Dune), just because she'd read at least one story from them at some point...

Oh, I didn't mean a cheat by readers, I meant a cheat by NPR. If they're going to pick the top 100 books, then they should pick one book for each slot. I don't see why Wheel of Time and Amber are on there as whole series, but Merlin, New Crobuzon (Perdido Street Station), Pern, and Willis' time travelers are not.

I gave myself partial credit for Dune, Amber, and Vorkosigan, and double credit for Covenant.

I loved Ender's Game, but the first follow-on trilogy had a bigger impact on me. I wish it were on here.

68. I haven't read any "adult" fantasy in 15 years, nor much King, so not a "good" list for me. It feels a bit too much like a mix of "everyone knows this is 'Literary SF/Fantasy'" and "stuff that hit the bestseller lists" for my tastes.

Is this supposed to include YA and kid's SF/Fantasy? There a number of books that clearly qualify as such, by absences (Potter, Narnia) suggest that the category was excluded.

Quotes

"Every one of the standards according to which action is condemned demands action. Although the dignity of persons is inevitably violated in action, this dignity would be far less recognized in the world than it is had it not been supported by actions such as the establishment of constitutions and the fighting of wars in defense of human rights. Action must be untruthful, yet religion, science, philosophy, and the arts, the main forms of absolute fidelity to the truth, could not survive were they unsupported by action. Action cannot but be anticommunal in some measure, yet communal relationships would be almost nonexistent without areas of peace and order, which are created by action. We must act hesitantly and regretfully, then, but still we must act."

(Glenn Tinder, The Political Meaning of Christianity: The Prophetic Stance [HarperSanFrancisco, 1991], 215)

"[T]he press was still the last resource of the educated poor who could not be artists and would not be tutors. Any man who was fit for nothing else could write an editorial or a criticism....The press was an inferior pulpit; an anonymous schoolmaster; a cheap boarding-school; but it was still the nearest approach to a career for the literary survivor of a wrecked education."

"Mailer was a Left Conservative. So he had his own point of view. To himself he would suggest that he tried to think in the style of [Karl] Marx in order to attain certain values suggested by Edmund Burke."

(Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night [The New American Library, 1968], 185)

"All those rely on their hands, and each is skillful at his own craft. / Without them a city would have no inhabitants; no settlers or travellers would come to it. / Yet they are not in demand at public discussions, nor do they attain to high office in the assembly. They do not sit on the judge's bench or understand the decisions of the courts. They cannot expound moral or legal principles and are not ready with maxims. / But they maintain the fabric of this world, and the practice of their craft is their prayer."

(Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 38:31-34, in The Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha [Oxford University Press, 1989])

"The tendency, which is too common in these days, for young men to get a smattering of education and then think themselves unsuited for mechanical or other laborious pursuits is one that should not be allowed to grow up among us...Every one should make it a matter of pride to be a producer, and not a consumer alone."

(Wilford Woodruff, Millennial Star [November 14, 1887], 773)

"We are parts of the world; no one of us is an isolated world-whole. We are human beings, conceived in the body of a mother, and as we stepped into the larger world, we found ourselves immediately knotted to a universe with the thousand bands of our senses, our needs and our drives, from which no speculative reason can separate itself."

"'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!'"

(Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol [Candlewick Press, 2006], 35)

"The Master said, 'At fifteen, I set my mind upon learning; at thirty, I took my place in society; at forty, I became free of doubts; at fifty, I understood Heaven's Mandate; at sixty, my ear was attuned; and at seventy, I could follow my heart's desires without overstepping the bounds of propriety.'"

"Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena grow more and more able to formulate, as the foundations of their theories, principles which admit a wide and coherent development: while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations."

"[God] does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. . . . His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him."

"Money is simply a tool. We use money as a proxy for our time and labor--our life energy--to acquire things that we cannot (or care not to) procure or produce with our own hands. Beyond that, it has limited actual utility: you can't eat it; if you bury it in the ground, it will not produce a crop to sustain a family; it would make a lousy roof and a poor blanket. To base our understanding of economy simply on money overlooks all other methods of exchange that can empower communities. Equating an economy only with money assumes there are no other means by which we can provide food for our bellies, a roof over our heads and clothing on our backs."

"A scholar's business is to add to what is known. That is all. But it is capable of giving the very greatest satisfaction, because knowledge is good. It does not have to look good or even sound good or even do good. It is good just by being knowledge. And the only thing that makes it knowledge is that it is true. You can't have too much of it and there is no little too little to be worth having. There is truth and falsehood in a comma."

"I believe in democracy. I accept it. I will faithfully serve and defend it. I believe in it because it appears to me the inevitable consequence of what has gone before it. Democracy asserts the fact the masses are now raised to a higher intelligence than formerly. All our civilization aims at this mark. We want to do what we can to help it. I myself want to see the result. I grant that it is an experiment, but it is the only direction society can take that is worth its taking; the only conception of its duty large enough to satisfy its instincts; the only result that is worth an effort or a risk. Every other possible step is backward, and I do not care to repeat the past. I am glad to see society grapple with issues in which no one can afford to be neutral."